Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Three prominent U.S. feminists in the 1800s -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Lucretia Mott -- learned what women's equality could look like through personal contact with Native American women.

Historian Sally Roesch Wagner of Syracuse is the author of “Sisters in Spirit,” which chronicles the influence of Haudenosaunee women on early U.S. feminists. 

She says that the three women witnessed the mirror opposite of their own society in Haudenosaunee culture.

Among the hundreds of shows in the KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival lineup this week is one called, "Suffragettes Unite!"

The performer is jazz singer Ann Mitchell. She doesn't sing in this show, but speaks the words delivered by suffrage leaders Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other women, including Sarah C. Owen.

"She was just another woman, like you or myself, that was at the convention,” Mitchell said. “She was part of the movement."

The newest in the fleet of tugboats on the Erie Canal was christened Friday in honor of women’s suffrage leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

In the 19th century, the canal was like the interstate highway of the day. It was frequently the path traveled between Seneca Falls and Rochester as Cady Stanton and her fellow suffragists coordinated their campaign for women’s rights.

At Friday morning's dedication at Corn Hill Landing in Rochester, Cady Stanton's great-great-granddaughter, Coline Jenkins, said tugboats are a metaphor for the life's work of her historic ancestor.